After a long day on the road and jumping in and out of the car to look at the sites on the way, we finally arrived at our base camp for the next 6 nights – BIG4 Airport Tourist Park (Hobart). It was a little later than we had hoped for and when we looked at the size of the park we knew it would be a potential stressful situation arising. Some how with very limited space we safely navigated the cars, units and other caravans to get ours homed and settled.

Hobart is Tasmania’s capital city and the second oldest capital in Australia, after Sydney. Located at the entrance to the Derwent River, its well-preserved surrounding bushland reaches close to the city centre and beaches line the shores of the river and estuary beyond.

31st December 2020
As the last day of 2020 we wanted to start early and head central Tasmania to a couple of popular bridges and associating towns, firstly arriving in Richmond and then onto Ross.

• Richmond, was one of the most influential areas in the foundation of Tasmania. Most of the village was constructed by convicts serving time at Richmond Gaol between the 1820’s and 1840’s. At one point Richmond was the third largest town in Tasmania, a major supplier of Australia’s wheat and a key part of the convict system. Nowadays, it’s one of the most popular tourist destinations  in Tasmania, with the most photographed bridge in Australia after the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We also visited the Hobart Town Historical Model Village where you can learn about the life of settlers in Hobart in the 1820s.
  
• Ross, The town is centred on the crossroads of Church and Bridge Streets with a field gun from the Boer War and a war memorial as a central part of the intersection. The crossroads area is humorously referred to as the “Four Corners of Ross” with each corner having a label: Temptation, Recreation, Salvation and Damnation. The Ross bridge was completed in 1836 and is the third oldest and one of Australia’s finest sandstone bridges. The bridge itself took 5 years to complete by convicts and has over 180 carvings, the bridged was finished and as a result the 2 convicts Herbert and Colbeck were granted freedom in recognition of their work.

As it was New Years Eve, we dined at a local place called the Roaring Grill – the food was superb and we highly recommended this venue, followed by a quick drive around to Rosny Hill Lookout to watch the fireworks, a great evening with friends and family.

1st January 2021 – Happy New Year
Driving down to Port Arthur, we stopped into Port Arthur Lavender farm on the way, this was a little disappointing compared to other reviews but nonetheless it was still producing lavender products and it was great to get some close ups of the natural pollination occurring by the locals.

• Port Arthur, we partook in a walking tour to learn about the history of Port Arthur. In 1830 it was a penal settlement as a small timber station and this grew to ship building as only skilled convicts were selected in these times but soon became its own colony and but it soon became a punishment station for repeat offenders, with some convicts escaping but being returned up to 5 times. There was a tough reform system that was built on punishment and discipline, classification and separation, giving convicts a chance to reform and move through the classification. What surprised me the most about Port Arthur was the Boy’s prison that was established in 1834 across the bay for kids older than 7, being tried as an adult. There were 3 prisons at Port Arthur and in 1848, reformists believed that corporal punishment was doing more harm than good so they built a separate Prison – this endured 23 hours of silence and loneliness – to the point where that had to where hoods with 2 eye holes only when going for the daily walk in the yard and abide by the 119 rules in place. I could keep telling you about Port Arthur but you will have to go for yourself…

• Eaglehawk, we stopped in on the way home to visit Tasman Arch, Devils Kitchen and Tessellated pavement.

2nd January 2021
It was a lazy morning this morning and we needed it, after the busy start to our holiday everyone was starting to feel the impact of lead up days. The good news is that we were lucky enough to venture into Hobart and visit the Salamanca markets, finding a carpark very close, only to line up to enter the markets due to COVID numbers, understandable. The markets were massive and had some really interesting items, Emily cleaned up with some retro / vintage items that she found but overall it was what you would be expecting at Markets – crafts, over priced items, drinks and food.

• As the weather was the best day so far in Hobart we trotted off up to Mt Wellington, this sits 1271 metres above sea level and changed 10 degrees in temp from the bottom to the climb, the views on a clear day are amazing, Not much more to say as I share some of the photos below. We snuck into Mako to fill our bellies on seafood.

• Port Arthur Ghost Tour, we didn’t get enough during the day so we returned for a Ghost Tour. This was more of a ghost story tour then a ghost tour and it depends on what you want if you will be disappointed or not. For us, our tour guide “Andrew” made the evening an enjoyable one, his story recollection encapsulates you and takes you back to when it occurred, it was not what I was expecting but I did enjoy the evening. Just watch out for the animals on the way home that’s all – drive slower and be safer :-).

3rd January 2021
This morning we jumped on a ferry and cruised up stream on the Derwent River in Hobart and arrived on the dock at MONA (Museum of Old & New Art), after a short wander around the gardens we took the plunge down 4 floors to the basement to start the crawl back up the top. We didn’t know what to expect and OMG was it art or just soft porn, to be honest it was hard to review any of the “art” without feeling a little awkward especially when you have your teenage kids in tow and this was just the basement level. I guess the good news was, as we headed back up to the surface viewing many interpretations the rating of the art work at lease was not soft porn, but it was still hard to understand what the artist was trying to tell, we still spent 2 hours there looking at it all. Time to regroup with the group as we met out on the lawn for some lunch and it appeared the interpretation continued with Wallaby Burgers on the menu.

Overall the experience at MONA was different, was it what you could imagine – I think not, would I recommend it – I struggled with this review and to be honest i found it interesting but would have preferred to have the soft porn section maybe with a warning, to allow you to decide on this section and maybe it should not be one of the first exhibits.

4th January 2021
Today was another sleep in lazy day, not a lot of plans or racing around was required, we soon packed the cars and started to drive to Tasmania’s favourite waterfall at Russell Falls located in the Mount Field National Park. We, being mum and my vehicles parked the car and decided to do a quick walk around the “Tall Tree Loop”, half way around we saw the sign to Russell Falls and decided to walk down to this waterfall and meet the Rendell’s there. Unfortunately due to a break down in communication we took a little longer than hoped but eventually made it to the waterfall before making the trek back to our cars. All the walking certainly needed to be rewarded with another country coffee, stopping of at the Platypus Creek Cafe before continuing on to the Westerway Raspberry farm to purchase some fresh berry purchase – Cherry, Raspberry, Silvanberries and Blueberry were all enjoyed.

One last stop as a little afternoon delight saw us stopping into Putters Adventure Golf to play 18 holes of mini golf. The next day would see us leave for the West Coast of Tasmania, in particular Strahan would be our base camp for a couple of nights.